Including Drovo, Darwinium and Node: Seven retail technology funding rounds you need to know about

RTIH rounds up seven retail systems ventures who have recently secured significant investments in their businesses, including QuoteMachine, Creative Force, Threedium, and Jellibeans.

1. Creative Force

Creative Force, an end-to-end creative operations workflow platform for e-commerce retailers and brands, has raised $8.9 million in Series A funding from Export and Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO) and Hearst Ventures, the venture capital division of Hearst.

This brings its total funding to $17.9 million.

Creative Force will use the cash to scale its Danish headquarters and new US office in Boston and integrate generative artificial intelligence (AI) into its platform.

2. Darwinium

Digital security and fraud prevention platform, Darwinium, has secured $18 million in Series A financing led by U.S. Venture Partners (USVP), with participation from seed investors: Blackbird, Airtree Ventures and Accomplice.

This brings total investment to $26 million and enables Darwinium to scale its edge-based solution across global geographies, where it is gaining traction across multiple vertical industries including FinTech, e-commerce, financial services and gaming/gambling.

3. QuoteMachine

QuoteMachine has closed $3.7 million in seed funding led by Manresa Ventures with additional investments from Clocktower Technology Ventures and Precursor Ventures.

The startup, whose retail software platform enables SMBs to scale their big ticket sales and tailored sales experiences involving human interactions, has raised $4.6 million to date.

It intends to use the capital to launch new payment solutions, offer new inventory management capabilities to better empower salespeople and grow its go to market teams. 

4. Drovo

Drovo, a UK-based startup specialising in transit media advertising technology, has raised £3 million of funding following a Series A investment round led by Maven Capital Partners. 

It plans to use the cash to further develop the dynamic digital rooftop screens element of its offering as well as expand its human resource and hardware acquisition. And also onboard new users for its proprietary technology platform.

Drovo pairs vehicle owners with advertisers to deliver targeted and measurable out-of-home (OOH) advertising campaigns through on-vehicle digital screens and wrapping.

Its geo-targeting and programmatic capabilities allow clients to customise their message to be seen at the right place and time.

The offering is used by Deliveroo, Paco Rabanne, Uniqlo and American Express, and features 28 real-time data points including location (down to borough, street and vehicle level), outside temperature, footfall and proximity to specific landmarks or stores.

5. Node

Node has launched its online shopping platform with a $2.75 million seed investment and is inviting merchants to apply to a beta programme for white glove onboarding and early access benefits to its patent pending technology.

“Online shopping has had difficulty finding a balance between ease of use and safety. Asking customers to remember usernames and passwords that have to be stored on vendors' servers generates a potentially unsafe situation. There are many companies devoted to tackling the range of issues, such as password retrieval, form completion, risk evaluation, and more,” says Rohan Mahadevan, CEO at Node.

“We must change the system to eradicate the symptoms. Node requires no usernames and stores no personal information. It’s a whole new way to manage online transactions.”

Node’s $2.75 million seed investment was led by Neotribe Ventures, and also includes executives and founders from the likes of Bill Me Later, Boku, Citicards, Facebook, Magento, Meta, and PayPal.

The cash will support product development and go to market. 

“Anyone involved behind-the-scenes in e-commerce knows how overdue we are for true transformation,” says Kittu Kolluri, Founder of Neotribe Ventures.

“Rohan and the veteran team behind Node are uniquely qualified to spearhead this change because they know the pain points and challenges merchants face - from delivering a good user experience to managing risk analysis.”

“There’s been a whole industry built around plugging gaps or smoothing friction in a system that no longer serves merchants OR consumers. Time for something new.”

6. Jellibeans

Jellibeans, a fashion intelligence and analytics startup, has announced the launch of jelli.studio, an AI enabled end-to-end collaboration fashion design to production intelligence platform that uses trend forecasts to prototype or optimise new collections in as little as 30 seconds.

Jellibeans has also raised $1 million from Aussco, a knitwear supplier for the likes of The Kooples, Kate Spade, and Coach.

jelli.studio is pitched as being akin to a Canva for fashion design, but bolstered by a Bloomberg Terminal like data analytics and AI image generation capabilities.

7. Threedium

Threedium, a specialist in 3D/AR high fidelity assets for e-commerce on web and mobile, has closed a Series A funding with $11 million investment.

The round was led by Interpublic Group and Olma Partners with additional support from Mesh Consensys, Reflexive Capital, Nirvana Family Office, Lyra Ventures, Edenbase, and Kinisis Venture Fund I.

Mike Charalambous, Co-founder and CEO at Threedium, says: "The world of static 2D e-commerce is becoming archaic. User behaviour is evolving and brands striving for distinction recognise the need to meet consumer demands for enriched, customisable experiences on the spatial web.”

“This new round of investment reinforces the trust investors place in our mission to revolutionise digital landscapes, equipping businesses with engaging and immersive capabilities."

Brands such as Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Bulgari, LOEWE, Girard Perregaux, Tommy Hilfiger, Diageo, and NuOrder Lightspeed are working with Threedium to make use of digital immersive experiences on the 3D web.